Back to the Philippines

MrC’s sister came by today to pick up the washing machine and the dining table.  While we were having coffee I happened to mention that we had 12 boxes for shipping and MrC added that it was 7 cubic meters all in all.   MrC’s sister’s boyfriend didn’t think it was right.  He said there was no way 12 boxes of 48cm x 32cm x 33 cm could become 7 cubic meters.   We realized MrC had miscalculated it!  The total value of the shipping should have been divided by 100 of our estimate!  That changes a lot of things.  Next thing you know, we were doubting if we were giving up the washing machine.   Poor MrC sister is now nervous she might go back and disappoint her friend back home.  We can then bring all of our appliances: refrigerator, clothes drier, dish washer even if we have to pay customs duties.  The cost of buying them again is so much more.  The ones we got were after all still in top condition and were pretty good models.  He sent a text message to our Dutch business friend back in the Philippines to ask about the implications of these.   In less than a minute we got a call from him.  What a nice guy!  Anyways, he said that washing machines of good quality are very expensive, something on the area of 1000 euros and we could solve the frequency difference by buying a regulator or something from the hardware.

We think that with just the two of us and our lifestyle we do not really see ourselves having a full time stay-in household help at this time.  Our needs may change but not in the short term.  We like our privacy and having our dishwasher still with us is a big plus.  Probably a few days a week we might have someone do stuff for us but not so much if we are just living in a 2 bedroom furnished apartment (which we still are looking for).  I was getting a bit anxious about that anyways but  MrC commented, “the apartment will find us”.

I surely hope so.

• Preparing to Go Back to the Philippines (Part 2)
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